Killing of Susanna Feldmann

Susanna Maria Feldmann was a 14-year-old German Jewish girl who was raped and murdered in the night on 22 or 23 May, 2018. Ali Bashar Ahmad Z., a 21-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker, was named as a suspect.[1] He is also suspected of having raped an 11-year-old German girl twice.[2]

Incidents

Susanna Feldmann went missing on 22 May 2018. She was raped and murdered in the night on 22 or 23 May and her remains were buried near a railway line, the Ländches Railway. In early June, Feldmann's remains were found by the police,[3] after a 13-year-old migrant, who lived in the same refugee station as Z., went to the police, stating that Z. told him about the crime. Susanna Feldmann had been raped and suffocated.[3][4][5] After the girl died, her mother received a text in ungrammatical German: "Don’t look for me, I come in 2 or 3 weeks”.[6]

Suspect

Ali Bashar Ahmad Z. was born on 11 March, 1997.[1] He used his second given name as a surname when arriving in Germany, so initial media reported his name as Ali B. or Ali Bashar.[1]

According to Stefan Müller, the head of police for western Hesse, Z. had probably migrated to Germany in October 2015 as part of a wave of other migrants.[7] Z. lived in a refugee station in Erbenheim district of Wiesbaden and was previously known to police authorities for having attacked a female police officer, robbery using a knife and was a suspect in the rape of an 11-year-old girl who lived in the same refugee station.[8][9][10] Z. along with his parents and five siblings departed Germany on 2 June 2018 using other names than those given to the refugee station.[5][11] On 8 June 2018, he was captured in northern Iraq by Kurdish authorities.[4][9] According to Tarik Ahmad, the City Police Chief of Dohuk, where the suspect was arrested, Z. confessed to strangling Feldmann but denied having raped her.[12] Z. was sent to Germany as stated by interior minister Horst Seehofer.[13]

According to German anthropologist Susanne Schröter, Z. lacked respect for Germany society, German women and German police.[14]

Prosecutor Oliver Kuhn said that the suspect was probably older than his German documents state, based on information provided by the Iraqi government.[15] Die Welt reported that the discrepancy arises because when the suspect and his family requested asylum in Germany in 2015, they claimed to have no identity documents; nonetheless, they later presented Iraqi documents at the consulate in Frankfurt. As he is 21, older than the originally reported 20 years, the suspect is too old to be tried as a minor.[1]

Second rape case

Initially, it was reported that Z. also raped an 11-year-old girl in a refugee center, a suspicion which couldn't be confirmed by the police at first. But on 3 July 2018, it was reported that the prosecutor had applied also for another arrest warrant against Z. - who is already in custody - because of a double rape of a 11-year-old German girl in a refugee center. Already on 2 July an arrest warrant was issued against the 13-, now 14-year-old refugee, who was the witness in the case of the murder of Susanna Feldmann, as an accomplice in the rape case of the 11-year-old girl.[2]

Aftermath

The Central Council of Jews in Germany confirmed that the victim was a member of the Jewish community in Mainz and expressed condolences to friends and family of the victim.[9]

Public debate

This is one of a series of high-profile crimes by asylum seekers that has led to a fraught political conversation about German migrant policy, hardened anti-migration sentiments, and contributed to the entry of Alternative for Germany into the parliament of Germany in the 2017 elections.[11][16]

The murder sparked a political debate in Germany on how Z. had been allowed to remain in Germany after his asylum application was rejected in 2016.[5] Politicians, such as Christian Lindner (FDP) also raised questions on how the suspect along with his family were able to leave Germany using fake identities.[11][17]

Schröter stated that the murder could not be viewed as an isolated incident. Instead it should be viewed as part of a phenomenon with young men from patriarchal societies, as Islam like other religions championed patriarchal values that legitimises violence and sexual assault.[14] According to Schröter, men from countries dominated by Islam have a completely different views and norm of women to that of Germany. According to those norms, German women are all whores because they show skin in the summertime, because they wear figure-fitting clothing or smoke. Schröter further stated that the situation is aggravated because Germany has taken in a million young men, which means the country has an excess of young men for which there are no partners available.[14]

Concerns in the media

The Süddeutsche Zeitung worried the public may list the cases of other German women killed by asylum seekers, and enumerated[10] the murders of Maria Ladenburger of Freiburg (2016), Mia Valentin of Kandel (2017), and Mireille B.[18] of Flensburg (2018).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Tatverdächtiger im Fall Susanna ist bereits 21 Jahre alt, Die Welt, 12 June 2018
  2. 1 2 Weiterer Vergewaltigungsverdacht gegen Ali B. erhärtet, Die Welt, 3 July 2018
  3. 1 2 Germany, hessenschau.de, Frankfurt, (2018-06-07). "Ein Tatverdächtiger im Mordfall Susanna wieder frei". hessenschau.de (in German). Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  4. 1 2 Online, FOCUS. "Kurdische Spezialkräfte warteten, bis Ali B. schlief - dann startete der Zugriff". FOCUS Online (in German). Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  5. 1 2 3 "Flickmord skapar debatt i Tyskland". Göteborgs-Posten (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  6. ↑ KATRIN BENNHOLD (11 June 2018). "A 14-year-old girl's rape and murder shakes Germany's migration debate". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 11 June 2018. The last text message she had received from her daughter’s cellphone on May 23 was written in bad German. “Don’t look for me,” it said. “I come in 2 or 3 weeks.” At that point Susanna had already been dead.
  7. ↑ (www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. "Suspect in 14-year-old's murder has left Germany, police say | DW | 07.06.2018". DW.COM. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  8. ↑ (www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. "Suspect in 14-year-old's murder has left Germany, police say | DW | 07.06.2018". DW.COM. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  9. 1 2 3 "Suspect in rape, murder of German-Jewish teen Susanna Feldman arrested in Iraq". Times of Israel. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  10. 1 2 Oliver Klasen; Roland Preuß; Jan Willmroth (7 June 2018). "Die lange Spur in den Irak" [The Long Track in Iraq]. Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 10 June 2018. asylum seekers are held responsible for the death of German women. Maria, raped and murdered in Freiburg, Mia, stabbed to death in Kandel, Mireille, who died in Flensburg, also by knife wounds.
  11. 1 2 3 (www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. "Germany: Politicians seek answers after teenager's murder suspect's flight | DW | 08.06.2018". DW.COM. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  12. ↑ "Ali B. soll Susannas Tötung zugegeben haben". Spiegel Online. 2018-06-09. Retrieved 2018-06-10.
  13. ↑ Frankfurt, Susanne Höll (2018-06-09). "Verdächtiger Ali B. ist wieder in Deutschland". sueddeutsche.de (in German). ISSN 0174-4917. Retrieved 2018-06-11.
  14. 1 2 3 WELT (2018-06-09). "Forscherin zum Fall Susanna F.: „Das ist jetzt kein Einzelfall mehr"". DIE WELT. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  15. ↑ "Susanna's murder case: Ali B. presumably older than expected". Hamburger Abendblatt (in German). 12 June 2018. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  16. ↑ "Teenage girl stabbed to death in broad daylight in west German park". The Local. 12 June 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  17. ↑ "A Girl's Killing Shakes Germany's Migration Debate". The New York Times. 2018-06-08. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  18. ↑ "Dead girl from Flensburg: Mireille B. († 17) called the police for help". Focus (German magazine) (in German). 23 March 2018. Retrieved 10 June 2018. The 18-year-old Ahmad G. is considered suspect and was presented to the magistrate on suspicion of manslaughter.
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